Spoiled by Lala and Poppa

Matt's parents came to stay with us for over a week and they completely spoiled us rotten...yes, all of us!  They were here the last full week of June (and my mom just told me it's mid-July now, how has the time gotten away from me?!?  I swear I never know what day it is anymore...) and we were really sad when it came time for them to leave.  We always enjoy their company and they were a huge, huge help.  While here, they:

• helped cook dinner
• cleaned up after dinner
• fed baby bottles
• did the morning bottle shift (so I could sleep in!)
• changed baby diapers
• changed toddler diapers
• gave baby baths in the sink
• gave toddler baths in the tub
• dressed the baby and the toddler
• carted the toddler back and forth to daycare
• entertained the toddler
• cuddled the baby
• fed the toddler
• kept the baby while the toddler and I went on two outings
• treated me to a mani/pedi
• babysat both kids so we could go out to dinner

And on and on!  In addition to that, they showed up with new clothes for Thomas and toys for Katie Wynn and even a gift for me!  I've told them they're welcome to come back every other week and do it all again.  :)  

Seriously, they were awesome and a tremendous help while we were sleep deprived and I don't think we'll ever be able to adequately repay them.  Thank you, Lala and Poppa!!

I seemed to have only taken pictures sporadically during their visit so they aren't really a full representation of all the fun we had.  I'll try to let them mostly speak for themselves with limited commentary.  :)  (Oh, and some pics are from Lala's camera so she gets credit for them.)

Who sits down to grill?!  Apparently Katie Wynn does.

Same hair color!

One morning Katie Wynn needed to read to her dolls before school.  These pictures illustrate why she has a bow in her hair everyday.  She looks like she's wearing a wig!

Katie Wynn found a new hiding spot while Lala and Poppa were here.  Sometimes she sat in there with the door closed for so long that I almost forgot she was in there.

After spending the week spoiling the four of us, Lala and Poppa left here with the big kids in their back seat so they could spend a week spoiling them at their house.  Are they great grandparents or what??  I don't know everything they did but I know they went on a big canoe trip and visited with their great grandfather and had a big family gathering for the 4th of July.  I kinda hate we missed out on it all!  I stole pictures from that week from Lala's camera...

After a fun week, Lala and Poppa drove them all the way back home.  They stayed at our house again for a very short visit before heading home.  I bet they were exhausted after two weeks of lots of grandkids!  :)

Thank you again, Lala and Poppa, for visiting and for loving our kids (and us!) like you do!

Splash Pad!

I'm a huge fan of splash pads and a new one just opened up very close to our home.  It's awesome because it's brand new, perfectly sized for Katie Wynn-aged kids, and is free!  My friend Emily and I met there with our kids one Thursday morning and pretty much had the place to ourselves.  I'm sure it will become more and more crowded as word gets out that it's open, but we enjoyed letting our kids run wild while we could.  

I tried to snap a few pictures on my phone but none of them are stellar.  All four of the kids were too scared to actually run through the water sprinklers, but they loved for them to be on so they could splash around them.  The slide was a super big hit too.

Four kids looking in one picture?  Impossible.

Narrowing it down to three doesn't make it any easier...

In typical kid fashion, if one was interested in the slide, they were ALL interested in the slide.

Actually, Katie Wynn pretty much stayed on the slide the majority of the time we were there.  She has definitely gotten past the fear of going down them alone!

It's funny, even though Katie Wynn is much closer in age with the twins (they will be in the same grade), she almost always ends up buddying up with Alice and they play together.  They even showed up in matching swimsuits!

Checking out the water spouts, but keeping a safe distance...

Anna Charlotte's bright blue eyes are always so pretty!

Emily came much more prepared than me.  Thank goodness she brought snacks!! 

Alice was a good big sister to all three of the little kids and doled out cheezits to each of them. 

By 11:30, we were loading everybody up to head home for lunch.  The best part about a morning at the splash pad is definitely the awesome afternoon nap!!  I can't wait to go back!

Lately

Thomas has slept all the way through the night for the last two nights in a row!  Wooohooo!!  We've given him a bottle at 9pm and then haven't heard any screams until time for his 6am bottle.  The first night - his 5 weeks old "birthday" - I thought it was just a fluke, but he did it again last night.  I'm sure I'm totally jinxing everything by writing it out here, but I'm just so excited!  (And slightly more well-rested!)  Now that we know he can do it, we can start working towards it being an every night thing.

At his two week checkup, he was back above his birth weight.  He had gained 15 ounces in 13 days to put him at 8 pounds, 13 ounces.  It's been three weeks since that weigh-in so who knows what he's up to now!  Everything looked good at that checkup - good weight and size and no more jaundice.  Now we don't go back until he's 2 months old and the dreaded shots start.  

Thomas seems to have a thing for blondes.  Don't tell his big sister that he was playing in her bed while she was at school!

A couple weekends ago we upgraded our driveway pool to a bigger size so we've been logging lots of time in the water.  Katie Wynn spent one whole evening "diving" for stones!

Oh!  Big news for Katie Wynn - her hair is finally long enough for pig tails!!!  Probably no one thinks this is as exciting as I do.  I have always wanted a little girl so I could play with her hair.  :)

Katie Wynn has become the best big sister ever.  Any fears I had of her hating the new baby have completely gone away.  Sure, we have to tell her to "be gentle" a hundred times a day, but she just LOVES to touch Thomas and be close to him.  She kisses his head over and over and the first thing she says when she wakes up or gets home from school is "Baby?"  She has to know where he is at all times!  If he's on his playmat (pictured below) then chances are, she is too.

We had a fun dinner date with friends one night and KW and Addi Clare took turns pushing each other in a doll stroller.  She may need one of these for her birthday...she loves strollers!

A couple weeks ago I got my first scary call from daycare.  I always dread seeing their number pop up on my phone because it's never good news!  They called to let me know that Katie Wynn had red bumps all over her body and they seemed to be getting worse.  She didn't have any bumps when we dropped her off so I had no idea what they were talking about.  They texted me pictures and I immediately called the doctor for an appointment.

It definitely looked like hives from an allergic reaction and they were completely covering both her arms and legs.  We racked our brains of what could be causing it and finally decided this cute little dress was the culprit.  The outer layer of fabric was shimmery and must've had something that irritated her skin.  I took it off of her and the bumps immediately started to clear up.  They were nearly gone by the time she saw the doctor - thank goodness we had pics!  She agreed it was just an allergic reaction and no major need to worry.  Phew!

Katie Wynn has become obsessed with pockets.  She has a couple new pairs of shorts that have them and she loves to put her hands in them.  "Paw-ets!"  Of course, once they're in, they can't come out...she has to walk around with her hands jammed down in them!

Sometimes we sing, "Hands in your pants and do the pocket dance!" and everyone has to put their hands in their pockets and dance with her.  I wish I had this on video.

Remember how I said she loves strollers?  Poor Lolli has to be her passenger since Thomas can't sit up yet.  (But believe me, she has tried to get us to put him in her stroller hundreds of times!)

Here are some pictures of Mr. T so he doesn't feel left out.  We don't have any fun storiesl about him yet.  Mostly he just eats and sleeps (and sometimes screams and cries). 

Ok, back to Katie Wynn.  We bought an awesome bubble machine at Walmart that puts out a ton of bubbles.  She loves playing in them and I love that I'm not covered in sticky bubbly mess from having to blow them for her.  :)

It's amazing to me how much Katie Wynn has grown up in the last month.  Her vocabulary has expanded so much; she says words I didn't even know she knew!  She will copy what we say (gotta watch the language!) and chatters all day long.  Sometimes she says something over and over and gets so frustrated because we can't figure out what she's trying to tell us.  We do a lot of "point to what you want" around the house until we figure it out.  We've also realized that she notices a lot more of what we do than we think.  The other day I caught her strapping her baby doll into the car seat and then hooked her arm in it to pick it up just like how I do.  Didn't know she was watching me do that all the time!

Here is Sweet T in his "wet" monogram.  :)

I wasn't kidding about how much KW loves her little brother.  Here is more evidence of her sisterly love.  She had to immediately check on him after her bath, completely bypassing her pajamas that were laying out.  And one morning she wanted to hold him in our bed and just fell backwards when we gave him to her.  

On the morning of the 4th of July, she wanted Thomas to sit in her "yap" for a picture.  Can you believe these are the only pictures I took on the 4th?? We went to three different parties and I didn't break out my camera at a single one.  Shame on me!  But we had a really good day and enjoyed lots of time in the pool and eating good food and watching the fireworks.  

I think I'll end this post with a selfie (groupie?) we took one night after we'd all had baths.  Katie Wynn insisted that I put Thomas in her lap and then wanted to take a picture.  She is too funny!  

I'm going to try to do better at posting more regularly.  I already have a few other things to share and if Thomas keeps sleeping through the night (fingers crossed!!) maybe I can get back on a good schedule of posting!

"Knot-ical" Nursery

In case you're having trouble figuring out that title, it's supposed to be "nautical" with "knot" inserted.  :)

Thomas is 3 and half weeks old and I've finally finished his nursery! (Update: He's four and half weeks old now.  It's taken me over a week to get this written...)  Or at least finished it for now.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out, especially since I really had no idea what I wanted or where I was going with it.  Ready for some pics?

Here is my first-ever panoramic iphone photo.  Hopefully it'll help you visualize the layout of everything.

Ok, now let's back up a second and talk about where this room is in our house.  Our house has four bedrooms but with Matt and me in one, Katie Wynn in one, and Anna and Wyatt each having their own room, we were fresh outta rooms.  The only room left was our "office" that had held nothing but junk since we moved in.  There are some less-than-ideal things about it - like it's right at the front door, across from the dining room, and has double french doors - but I still felt like we could make it work as a bedroom.

We added curtains to the double french doors to block the view and light a little bit and to hopefully make it feel more like a bedroom inside.  As of right now, we have been leaving the door on the right closed and just using the left one, again to make it feel more like a bedroom.

The door's open, so let's go on inside!  Directly across from the double french doors is the crib.  Above it is the school of fish I already told you about.  I've already caught Thomas eyeing them during his brief stints in his crib.  

The crib bedding is all out of Benartex Home's Coastal Living collection (except for the cream minky dot) and was handmade by my mom.  She did an awesome job on it!!  This fabric was probably the splurge for the room (other than the custom built-ins) but I ended up getting a great deal on it.  One piece in the collection is a patchwork of all the other pieces and sold for $53 a yard at the store I found it in.  Yikes, too rich for my blood!!  I ended up finding that same piece of patchwork fabric online at a clearance price of $9 a yard.  Awww yeah, that's more like it!  

Mom used the patchwork fabric to make an adjustable crib skirt.  It's adjustable so that it can "kiss the floor" when the crib is at any of its three levels.  She trimmed it out in the same stripe that she used on the outside of the bumper pads.  

The inside of the bumper pads is a soft cream minky dot that is an exact match to the cream zip sheet on the mattress.  (If you have a child (or two) sleeping in a crib with bumpers and you aren't using zip sheets, you need to stop what you're doing and purchase some now!  They make changing the sheets SO much easier!)  We bought and cut our own foam for the bumper pads so it's two inches thick and pretty much stands up on its own.  The piping is done out of another coordinating stripe and Mom also made a small minky dot blanket out of her leftover fabric.

The bumper ties were the holdup on calling the nursery complete because I was dragging my feet on getting them sewn on!  I hate hand-sewing but I finally knocked it out and love the way they turned out.  I used a white cording rope and tied sailor knots (Carrick Bend, to be exact) instead of the usual bow to go along with the "knot-ical" theme.  

To the right of the crib is the set of hanging shelves we made.  Below them is still an empty space - this is where a toy box or small book shelf will eventually be added.  

I saw lots of different versions of rope shelves on Pinterest.  I just took the parts I liked of each one and mashed them together to make our version.  The shelves are each anchored to the wall so the rope and knots are more cosmetic than functional.  The rope is wrapped around boat cleats that are majorly secured to the wall.  (Matt said they are on there so good that if we ever have a tornado we should ditch the closet and just hang on to the boat cleats!)

The shelves are full of nautical-ish decorations.  I can't wait to get his newborn pictures back so I can fill up the empty picture frames in his room!

Below is the view from standing in front of those shelves and looking back to the other side of the room.

We have been steadily filling up the closets with little boy clothes.  I'm still adjusting to having so much blue mixed in with our pink laundry!

Everything in the built-ins nook except for the wooden fish was a Homegoods find.  I LOVE the mirror and how it looks hanging there!  It does a good job of bouncing the natural light from the windows around the room so it's always nice and bright in here.  

Now, here's the view of the other side of the room from standing right in front of that mirror.

The changing table that I found at Bargain Hunt for a whopping $25 sits in between the two windows.  I love how much it cost but I still don't love the way it looks.  I added four Homegoods baskets but it seems like no matter how organized I keep the baskets, it always looks messy to me.  Oh well, it's just til he's potty trained, right?!  

But right above the changing table is one of my very favorite things in the room - the shadowbox of knots!  Matt and I looked up different boating knots and tied all of these ourselves.  I had a friend frame it and she included small plaques with the names of each knot underneath it.  It was really hard to get a good picture of it because of the glares so you'll just have to come see it in person.  

I think what I love most about this is that nothing about it screams little boy.  I can see this hanging in Thomas's office someday when he's big and grown!

To the right of the changing table is this cozy corner where I've already fed my boy bottles and rocked him to sleep.  The chair is one that we already had that we had recovered and added a swivel glider base to the bottom of so that it would rock.  The ottoman is a storage cube that we had too.  

The floor lamp is one that we already had; it's from Target and used to live in the living room.  

Mom made the throw pillow that sits in the chair and it's reversible.  Gotta love having options!  One side is the patchwork fabric like the crib skirt and the other side is the stripe on the bumper pads.  

I love the wicker whale shelf that we found at Homegoods but I'll admit, I've had a hard time finding things small enough to fit in the uniquely shaped openings!  I'm sure these will all change as Thomas acquires more things.

Here's another view of that side of the room where you can see the french doors.  Above them hangs an oar!

You may have already noticed but on both the window treatments and the french door coverings, we used industrial piping instead of traditional curtain rods and hardware.  We pieced together galvanized pipes, elbows, and phalanges to make rods for the curtains to hang on.

On the french doors, we added a "belt" to the middle of the curtains so we can still peek through the windows.  I'm sure as he gets older we'll end up removing these so he can have more privacy, but for now I like being able to see in.  

And you know we had to tie those "belts" in with the theme of the room, so we added sailor knots to them too. 

Our cleaning lady got to watch the room come together when she came by every other week.  She surprised us the week Thomas was born with this little sailor outfit that she had made for him.  Can you believe she made that!?  She's got skills.

So that's the grand tour of our knot-ical nursery.  I hope you enjoyed it!  I'll keep you posted when our little sailor actually starts sleeping in it.  :)

Grout Upgrade

Ever since we moved into this house (almost two years ago!), I have hated the grout color in Katie Wynn's (and Thomas's) bathroom.  I have always thought it looked dark and gross.  Here, take a look for yourself.

Isn't that nasty?  Not to mention that the color was inconsistent across the floor.  

After reading this tutorial from Young House Love and seeing a couple other success stories (here and here), I felt pretty confident that I could give my gross grout an inexpensive face lift.  And with Matt's parents in town for the week to help take care of Thomas, now seemed like the perfect time to knock it out.  So I sent Matt to Home Depot after work on Tuesday to pick up a $12 bottle of Polyblend Grout Renew.  I told him to pick a light grey or putty color and he ended up bringing home Oyster Gray, the same color used by John and Sherry from YHL.  

He brought it home Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning I went to work in the bathroom!  I did not scrub my floors in preparation because A) I'm too lazy and B) the grout renew is supposed to be applied to dry floors and I was ready to get it done.  No time to let floors dry!

Still in my pajamas, I grabbed the bottle and a tiny paintbrush and crouched down to get started behind the toilet.  After doing one tile I was pretty sure I would not be knocking out this project in one day.  It took forever, and I was already hurting from contorting my body to get behind the toilet.  Thankfully, my pace picked up a little as I moved out into the open floor.  

Here are some progress shots.  

Three and a half hours later and I was finally done!  And in desperate need of a back and shoulder massage.  I think it was worth it, though.  My paint job is far from perfect up close, but who is going to get down on their hands and knees to inspect this bathroom floor?  Hopefully only our cleaning lady.  :)

Here are some side-by-side before and after pics.  Do you think the new color looks better?  I don't necessarily think it's the perfect shade for these tiles, but I still think it's way better than before!

The bottle of Grout Renew says it's a paint and sealer in one, so I have zero plans to add another separate sealer.  That means that BOOM, this home improvement project is DONE.  Which is a good thing since I need to move on to the next project.  This bathroom is undergoing a mini makeover so now I've got to get busy finishing some art work for the walls.